(1673).

From this time forward the Protestant party concentrated their efforts
on securing the exclusion of the Duke of York from the English throne.
Charles II. had married Catharine of Braganza, by whom there was no
issue, and consequently his brother was the lawful heir. At the same
time it was clear to everybody, that James was so firmly attached to
the Catholic Church that neither the fear of losing the crown nor the
zealous efforts of Stillingfleet and other distinguished ecclesiastics
were likely to bring about his re-conversion to Protestantism. The
news, too, of his projected marriage with Mary the daughter of the
Duke of Modena, opening as it did the prospect of a long line of
Catholic rulers in England, was not calculated to allay the fears of
the Protestants. After he had been dismissed from office the Earl of
Shaftesbury set himself deliberately to fan the flames of religious
bigotry, in the hope of securing the exclusion of the Duke of York
from the throne. With this object in view it was proposed either that
Charles should procure a divorce from Catharine of Braganza, so as to
be free to marry some younger lady by whom an heir might be born, or
else that with the consent of Parliament he should vest the succession
in his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. Just then, when feeling
was running high in England, a wretch named Titus Oates came forward
with a story of a Popish Plot. Oates, formerly a preacher and minister
of the Established Church, had feigned conversion to Catholicism, and
had gained admission to the English colleges at Valladolid and St.
Omer from which he was dismissed. Acting in conjunction with Israel
Tonge he concocted the details of a plot, according to which the Pope
and the Jesuits were to bring about the murder of the king and the
overthrow of the Protestant religion. His story was so full of
contradictions and absurdities that it is difficult to understand how